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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 1907103" data-attributes="member: 1125">I have been thinking about this and have developed a vague thesis based around the whole Adaptation-Isolation discourse which will follow. As to the notion of natural selection I don't see why it should be a dead end. I concur that an evolutionary model doesn't fit, but what of 'Divine selection'. In one mythology I created the story went something like this"Tiki the Carver is the creator of humans and Tiki is a thinking. When the other gods went forth to create their chosen races Tiki sat back and watched and thought and planned. So when he took his branch from the tree of life and gave it form he did not mark his creature for beauty or for strength or for grace or for power as the other gods had done.  Instead he created her balanced in all ways, and he gave to his creature an innate curiosity to learn, and a will to survive and because She was balance in all ways she would adapt to all places and all conditions and so her children spread into all places from the burning deserts to the Snow covered tundra." - there you go Natural Selection by way of divine interventionAnyway how thids relates to race relationsThe survival of a given race depends on their ability to adapt to extreme changes in the environment. Homo Sapiens Sapiens was supremely adaptable and so survived, the other hominids were not adaptable and are now extinct (or bred out of existence) Now applying this to DnD Humans, Dwarfs and Elfs1. Humans - are still supremely adaptable, regardless of terrain/ environment be it desert, arctic, small Islands or urban sprawl humans will adapt and thrive as humans. Even where skin color varies they are still recognisably human and hence humans dominate across the world 2. Dwarfs - Dwarfs are not adaptable, they are best suited for a vary limited environmental range (being mountain/underground)However unlike the Neanderthals Dwarfs also have incredible stamina. Thus Dwarfs are long-suffering, when necessity calls them into new environments they are able to endure, get on with task at hand and survive. This is why Dwarfs tend to stay home and are consider gruff, they do not enjoy hot deserts or cool forest but they will endure them if they have to. However they are still overall limited by environment 3. Elfs - Elfs are highly unusual in how they manage environmental change. Rather than adapting to a environmental extermes elfs in fact transform. At some deep metaphysical level elfs are able to change their vary nature and become a new distinct species (a sub-race). Hence Drow, Sea Elfs, Wild Elfs and all the other varieties are distinct sets and have only limited commonality. However as each Elf subrace is specific to its given environment it results in a degree of isolation from other subraces. So where a brown skinned human will recognise a fair skinned human as 'human' and reinforce a sense of fraternity , a High Elf might not even recognise a Sea Elf or Noldor as having any connection at all. This elven Isolationsim is what keeps them from gaining dominance Fit other races in somewhere else along the spectrum (or make them exterme transformation of the basic proto-Elf stock!)of course its just a thought</blockquote>

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